Nielsen Revs Up 15%, Stronger Demand For Digital

Nielsen took in healthy second-quarter revenues, largely due to its acquisitions, including Arbitron.

Revenues climbed 15% to $1.59 billion. Without its Arbitron and Harris purchases, revenues rose 4.4%. Nielsen’s stock sank 5.2% in mid-day Tuesday trading to $46.24. Still, analysts say the 15% rise in revenue beat expectations. For Nielsen’s Buy business, its big market research unit for consumer firms, revenues were up 6.6% to $900 million. This was mostly driven from its new client gains. Without Arbitron’s results, Buy was up 4.8%.

Nielsen Watch -- its other key business unit, offering measuring/metric products for business media owners and advertisers -- had 28% higher sales to $694 million. Nielsen says gains in audience measurement activity were up, including a greater demand for its digital and advertiser solutions products. Leaving out Arbitron’s results, revenues for the unit grew 5.7%.

Two smaller units also were higher: Information services revenues gained 5.0%, and its Insights business climbed 17.9%.

Net income sank dramatically to $76 million from $426 million in the second quarter of 2013. But cash flow -- earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization -- was up, to $372 million from $364 million.

Last year, Nielsen bought Arbitron for about $1.3 billion -- a company with a focus on radio measurement for most of its history, but which also made some strides in measuring media usage through mobile devices.

“Our focus on measuring and improving performance for our clients continues to be a powerful combination and positions us well to deliver long-term value to our shareholders,” stated Mitch Barns, CEO of Nielsen

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